Hey Folks,
So let me try to make the case for a wifi pizza box. [based on the
email thread titled " Any place in NYC or nearby to rent EVDO PCMCIA ."]
The demand for this is already bubbling up on this list, and I'm it's
sure similar all over the country.
Imagine for a minute a "Magic PizzaBox." Call 1-800-Magic-PizzaBox,
and get wireless internet delivered to your location in an hour.
Events need this all the times for it's participants and/or for it's
organizers, farmers markets need it for the vendors using credit card
machines, and there are a lot more cases, look around you. We want
internet everywhere, even outside of our homes, offices, and
starbucks. Personal use is great, but lets think for a bit about
events that cost money to put on or events in which money and goods
are exchanged. They are among some of the groups that would call
1-800-Magic-PizzaBox.
1) Market Will Eat it Up:
Upon calling a 1-800-Pizzabox an Access Point (in a pizzabox) with an
Evdo back-haul is delivered with a nerd that will help configure some
people's computers. If you want more bandwidth for your event get
2-3 Pizzaboxes. We can argue about what people will pay, but let the
market decide. My guest is $50-200 a day, per box. This is why they
will happily pay this. B/c high-speed wireless from Sprint or
Verizon costs from $200-500 to setup and activate, once all is said
and done. And if you want to cancel the service after say your one
event, that will cost you too. Plus you need the Access point
technology, plus a trusty laptop to admin with, plus some pretty
unique expertise to actually make it all worked as promised. Don't
take it for granted b/c half the nycwirless list could actually pull
this off, it's still a pretty specialized skill.
You do the math, put your own numbers in, and I think you'll see
there is a business model here and the market will support it. But
it's important to note there are NO technological restrictions from
making a Magic PizzaBox. And (although it is left to be proven) NO
market restriction to this either.
2) Your Signature to the Devil Called Verizon and Sprint:
[I'm just kidding I love these guys, just some good 'ole teasing]
As Alex pointed out there is only ONE thing preventing anyone from
doing this. And that your signature on the terms of service one signs
with the highspeed wireless service provider. Before using their
futuristic high-tech service we must promise to the little red man
that we will not share with our friends or resale. Does this sound
familiar? It's like wanting to share a dsl or cable modem with more
then one apartment or person. The only thing preventing a city of
users from creating a bottom-up infrastructure (like the one so
celebrated in NYC) is this signature. As you can see it's a
deterrent, but not much of one. And in the meantime, it's pretty
amazing what new yorkers have done.
3) What to do:
Verizon and Sprint are quite happy to sell each one of us highspeed
wireless for a small fortune for the rest of our lives. Other
services (WiMax) will come up and compete and drive the price down.
So I think that the Magic Pizzabox has a two or four year window to
be a whole lot of fun, very useful, and/or a money maker, after that
you have to change some things around. The one thing preventing this
is the condition under which Evdo is sold. I don't know a way around
this. But I've seen this kind of roadblock by-passed a hundred times
by the collective minds and efforts of people who see a better
alternative. Maybe one of us will figure out a loop whole? Or someone
could simply start providing the PizzaBox delivery service, just
doing it under the radar, and taking the risk that they might get
their service cut off it caught [unlikely].
Yet another alternative is to manifest a BWay.net that provides Evdo
or a service like it. I don't know, I'm just trying to clarify the
problem here so we can think-of or offer solutions. Or better yet,
become the solution.
Cheers,
Yury G
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